134 
CHEMICAL  ACCURACY. 
seums  in  nature  where  we  shall  see,  by  the  aid  of  magic  eyes, 
forms  of  disease  lurking  around  and  capable  of  being  successfully 
attacked  instead  of  insidiously  entering  and  finding  no  one  to 
struggle  against  them.  The  air  has  been,  and  will  long  be  a 
study  worthy  of  the  greatest  and  the  most  acute,  but  the  progress 
made  is  a  great  triumph,  and  shows  that  scientific  men  in  many 
departments  are  reasoning,  on  the  whole,  rightly  and  fairly, 
gaining  a  victory  over  the  world. 
We  may  say  that  all  organic  matter  comes  from  the  air,  the 
trees,  and  the  lower  animals,  and  man  himself ;  and  when  we 
have  viewed  this  proof  which  chemistry  has  made  we  almost  re- 
turn to  the  original  idea  that  the  air  is  the  life  of  the  world,  not 
by  general  and  vague  reasons  but  by  careful  analyses.  Out  of 
air  we  may  form  or  see  formed  by  natural  means  thousands  of 
bodies,  each  varied  in  its  structure  as  we  can  prove,  although  air 
itself  is  invisible ;  and  out  of  it  will  come  many  thousands  more 
— movements  of  unseen  bodies,  directed  by  unseen  forces,  and 
observed  by  unseen  minds.  It  is  to  this  that  we  have  come  by 
accuracy  to  a  world  that  was  as  unknown  as  if  it  were  in  Saturn, 
whereas  we  are  in  its  midst  and  the  scales  of  our  eyes  only  want 
removal  to  show  us  the  irresistible  intelligences  at  work. 
The  wide  and  hasty  flights  of  thought  are  past  in  many  depart- 
ments. The  workers  must  walk  softly.  Our  trail  is  not  the 
broad  foot  of  the  elephant  on  the  mud,  but  the  slightly  displaced 
leaf  of  the  forest.  With  patience  the  chemist  watches  the  drops 
from  his  filter  and  walks  up  and  down  on  guard  ;  with  patience 
he  observes  that  one-thousandth  of  the  weight  has  been  lost  and 
that  he  ought  to  have  lost  less ;  he  begins  again.  We  do  not 
wonder  at  Professor  Rose  being  excited  when  a  courtier,  walking 
about  in  his  laboratory,  touched  with  exquisite  forefinger  a  trans- 
parent precipitate  of  alumina  on  a  filter.  Stateliness  of  manners 
was  forgotten.  The  chemist  seized  the  offending  finger  and 
never  ceased  to  wash  it  with  a  jet  of  water  till  the  earth  t^as  all 
returned  to  the  funnel ;  nor  could  he  venture  to  explain,  since 
the  jet  was  driven  by  his  own  mouth  and  swollen  cheeks. 
The  idea  of  cleanliness  in  all  its  accuracy  is  known  only  to 
chemists.  When  preparing  a  substance  for  analysis  is  there  any 
trouble  we  avoid  if  we  can  aid  success  ?  What !  in  a  vile  labora- 
